How to Stay on Track with Unit Turnovers

The end of summer brings many new residents into apartments, especially for off-campus college housing; however, there are countless year-long leases coming to an end as well. Understanding your unit turnover rate is important as it allows you to determine how much time and money you will need to invest during these turnover periods.

Consecutive turnovers are inevitable, so how can you prepare for when that happens? And how can you stay on track with all your unit turnover tasks?

These questions may overwhelm you, but there’s good news—Rent Manager makes handling unit turnovers easier and more organized for your team!

Insight on Unit Turnovers

The cost associated with unit turnovers includes maintenance repairs, improvements, and cleaning fees. Taking these into account, it’s crucial to have a plan in place to cover all expenses. At the same time, you need to determine a proper timeline for turnovers to save on costs associated with the vacancy period between residents. One short vacancy may not be a big problem, but several at once can affect your bottom line. Five Simple Ways to Reduce Resident Turnover, by HOMEE, explains that “in a market with an average rent of $1,200, even one month of vacancy loss means you need to collect at least $100 more per month than the last resident was paying just to cover the month the home sat vacant.” However, there are ways to decrease the turnover time between each resident:

Provide Clear Communication—Keeping your renters informed about updates to their lease or unit will make for a happy resident.

Complete Work Orders—Resolving service issues in a timely manner throughout the leasing period will help create a relationship of trust with your tenants. Accordingly, they will be more likely to pursue lease renewals instead of move-outs.

Attract New Prospects—In the event that move-outs are expected, you’ll want to work on attracting new prospects. Whether that’s through Internet Listing Service (ILS) advertising or via listings on your website, you’ll have new tenants lined up when the previous renters leave.

Reducing turnover periods can be a challenge, so we provided a Make Ready feature in the software to help streamline the turnover process and make your business practices more efficient.

Rent Manager’s Make Ready Process

Substantial amounts of time, money, and effort are exerted after move-outs to make units ready and available for the next tenants. So, what if there is an easier way to check off the boxes and prepare for an organized transition? Rent Manager’s Make Ready feature can help flip vacant units and provide an up-to-date visual representation of the turnover process. The Make Ready feature includes three main components: Make Ready Actions, Make Ready Templates, and the Make Ready Board.

Make Ready Actions

Make Ready Actions classify and determine the order in which service issues and inspections appear on a Make Ready Template. Service issues are organized based on urgency, maintenance availability, work order, and service order forms from your operational tasks.

To view the Make Ready Actions, go to Admin -> Setup -> Rental Info -> Make Ready Actions

Make Ready Templates

Make Ready Templates contain the service issues and inspections from your Make Ready Actions. These will define a workflow that can be used to quickly start the Make Ready Process. Templates can be created for each property or unit as desired. Furthermore, you can utilize Rent Manager’s Inspection Templates to ensure an inspection follows your standard guidelines when creating your Make Ready Process. Both of these template resources will equip your team with the tools necessary to better prepare for move-ins/-outs and all the steps in between.

Once the Make Ready Process is kicked off, each service issue or inspection on the Make Ready Template is generated as a column on the Make Ready Board to easily track your progress.

To view the Make Ready Templates, go to Services -> Make Ready Templates

Make Ready Board

The Make Ready Board displays units that have a Make Ready Process assigned to them with color-coded statuses for the associated Service Issues, Inspections, and Unit Turnover tasks. These colors show the current state of each task: Scheduled, In Progress, or Complete. Having a tool to track your operation’s unit turnover steps not only helps fast-track the process but makes the effort easier and more organized for the staff involved.

From the Make Ready Board, simply click the issue or inspection name to open and edit the associated task.

To view the Make Ready Board, go to Services -> Make Ready Board

Additional Resources

Rent Manager’s Integrations Program offers services to assist you with all your property needs. To further enhance the turnover process, consider working with one of our integrated providers to manage your maintenance or inspections. Expand your capabilities, filter through our providers, and find the right fit for your unit turnover tasks!

With Rent Manager’s Make Ready solutions, you can create your own process and keep your unit turnovers on track today!

By Victoria Mrofchak